The night was icy cold. Several times I awakened to add fuel to our fire, and with dawn I was ready to move. If Itchakomi's people were coming to carry meat, it was meat we must have. I dragged some broken tree limbs to the cave and then took up my weapons. Itchakomi was awake, and when she started to rise I said, "Rest, if you like. I shall go where the game is."
Without saying more I started off, moving swiftly. I saw nothing on the wide expanse of snow but the tracks of yesterday. As I moved I thought of yesterday. Itchakomi had probably saved me from a fight by moving in the brush behind me. The Indians, of course, thought I was merely bait for a trap and they had backed off, not from any fear of me but of what might await them in the trees.
The buffalo were feeding further west and south near the mouth of the canyon I had seen where a stream came in from the west. I moved swiftly, keeping to low ground, and when I was within sight, I paused to select my target.
Glancing back I saw a dot upon the snow. Itchakomi was following me. I did not know whether to be irritated or pleased, and decided I was irritated.
It needed five arrows to kill two buffalo, but I recovered four of the arrows, the other was broken when the cow fell. By the time I had skinned out the first Itchakomi was working on the second. This had been the work of Indian women forever, I suspect, and certainly she was as adept as I, perhaps more so. Being a Sun she had probably done little skinning, however. I glanced over at her from time to time, but she was paying no attention to anything but the task at hand.
By midday we had both animals skinned and the cuts of meat wrapped in the hides. By that time the other buffalo had ranged out of sight. There was nothing in the wide snowfield below and around us. The meat we had was too heavy to carry, and trying to cache it with wolves about would have wasted time. They would have smelled it and dug it out before we were out of sight.
Suddenly, Itchakomi spoke. Glancing around I followed her pointing finger. Several men were walking toward us from the upper valley.
It was probably the Natchee, but I was taking no chances. We retreated into the woods and waited behind some fallen trees.
It needed an hour for them to reach us. Four warriors and two Natchee women. Within minutes they had shouldered the meat and we were walking back to our cave, where we took up the meat from the day before.
The valley below was empty when we started for home, but I looked back often and prayed for snow to cover our tracks. Itchakomi was telling her people of the meeting with the Conejeros.
The snow crunched under our snowshoes and we paused from time to time, careful not to work up a sweat. Each time we looked back the valley was empty. Would they guess where we were?
We were crossing a small stream when Itchakomi broke through the ice, going ankle deep in the icy water. Often the warmer water of a spring in the stream bed will cause the ice to be thin. Now it was necessary to move swiftly. Picking her up bodily I set her down in deep snow. Then I began rubbing snow over her moccasins. She struggled with me but I spoke sharply. "Be still! It must be done!"
She subsided and I rubbed more dry snow on her moccasins. "It will blot up the water," I said, "but always you must act quickly. Very quickly."
After a moment we started on and she was very quiet. When she spoke she said, "We do not know the cold. We have much to learn."
"It is the same with me. I know only a little, but the dry snow soaks up the water very quickly before it can soak through to your feet. My father taught me that. He learned it in New Found Land, far to the north."
We trudged on, climbing higher and higher, and then turning east into our valley. It was good to be back, but I knew how short a time our meat would last. Much had already been eaten in feeding those who had come to pack it back. In fact, the two meals eaten on the way home had seriously depleted the result of our hunt.
Had we longer to prepare we might have laid up a sufficient store of meat to last through the winter, although most Indians faced a starving time before spring came. Few had sufficient corn or meat stored to last through the season.
The wood supply was down, so I went to the forest and gathered more, and then still more. Survival was a continual struggle, with no time for loafing by the fire.
Itchakomi's Natchee went often to the hills for game. The cold was new to them, but they learned swiftly, and often they found deer, ptarmigan, or rabbits. Buffalo did not range so high in the cold months. Bears, if there were any about, were hibernating.
Suddenly in the night I awakened. For a moment I lay wide-eyed and still, listening. What I heard was dripping. Also I suddenly realized that although the fire was down I was unusually warm.
Rising, I went to the cave mouth. Outside I could see patches of bare ground where the snow had already melted away. By daybreak it would all be gone. It was one of those warm, soft winds of which I had heard, and for a time at least the weather would be clear.
If the Conejeros were going to attack it would be now, while the weather was clear.
It would be tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-Four.
Keokotah squatted by our fire. "Warm wind go," he said, "more snow come. You see."
Maybe. I knew nothing about the climate in this part of the country, and he knew a good deal, having grown up in the north country. Still, it looked to me like an early spring.
"No spring," he said, when I mentioned it. "This over soon, and then much snow, I think."
He stirred the fire and then turned the meat he had on a spit. "We go now," he suggested. "Go beyond big mountain."
"And leave them? What would they do without us?"
He shrugged.
The Natchee had learned quickly, and probably they could get along without us. Reluctantly, I agreed to myself that Keokotah was right, but we could not leave when trouble was coming. I said as much and he shrugged again.
Keokotah's girl went outside for fuel, and I watched her go, wondering about their relationship. Indian men often went on long hunts, and sometimes they returned, sometimes they did not. Their women found other men or lived alone, given meat by successful hunters. Was it that way with the Natchee? There was so much I did not know.
Leaning against the backrest I stretched my bad leg. Sometimes the cold made it ache. Aside from that and a slight limp it was as good as new. I could still run.
When I went outside, Itchakomi was there. She had cleaned her buckskin skirt and leggings. "You think they come?"
"Yes." I pointed toward the entrance. "Keokotah and I will be there. Your people should be in the trees along the creek and out of sight until they get close."
She looked over the ground sloping away from us. The plan was good enough and probably the only one. We could not stop them, but we might get one or two before they got through into the valley. After that it would be a fight, and there were too many of them.
"It is time to go," she said. "We must go to the upper valley."
"Wait. We may stop them this time. I do not believe there will be many this time."
Of course, I did not know, but I doubted many would come, thinking we were very few. We had little choice. A retreat to the upper valley would delay them only a little. They would find us, and where would we go then? If Keokotah was right and more snow was coming, we might be snowed in, our only retreat the high country beyond. It would be cold, and there would be danger of snowslides.
"It is a warming time," she suggested. "Does the grass come back now?"
I repeated what Keokotah had said, and she nodded. "I have heard of this. Long ago some people came to us from far up the Great River. They spoke of this. Is it so in your country?"
"In England? I do not know. My father spoke of a time when England was warmer than in his time. There had been vines growing grapes, and they made wine. Then it became colder and the vines did not grow.
"I think it was colder here," I said, "in far gone times. It was a time for the buffalo, who understand the cold. When the wind and snow blow hard they do not walk a
way from it. They bunch together and turn their heads to the wind, and their heavy coats are soon matted with snow and they are warm."
She stood beside me, a tall, lovely girl, wise for her years. I moved a step to the side, putting more distance between us. Her being close disturbed me, and I felt uneasy. Anyway, I had no time to think of women. I had much land to see. And I was happier when alone. I reminded myself of this. I had always been a loner.
Even with Keokotah I was a loner, for he walked with his own thoughts and we did not intrude. We were two loners together.
Keokotah was annoyed by staying on. He felt no duty to these people and he wanted to be away. Only the snow was holding him or holding us.
"What will you do," she asked, "when the grass grows green?"
My gesture took in the western mountains. "Go out there, I suppose. I want to see what is beyond the mountains."
"And then?"
My tongue touched my lips and I shifted my feet. Well, it was a sensible question, what would I do?
"I don't know. Find a meadow somewhere with a stream running and build a cabin, I guess."
"And then?"
She was backing me into a corner and I didn't like it. I was like a buffalo calf, cut off from the herd. I was hunting a corner to duck around or a place to hide.
"It would be a place where a man could hunt," I explained, "and sort of live off the country."
"Alone?"
"I've always been alone," I said, "even when I was with folks. I don't fit in with people, somehow. Books, now. I'd like to have some books."
She didn't push me any further and I was glad. I was feeling crowded and beginning to sweat a little.
"What of your brothers?"
"They were going their own ways. Yance had found him a woman and by this time Kin prob'ly has, too. A man has to blaze his own trail, and mine was to the west."
"I would like to know your brothers."
"You'd like them. Good men. My sister, Noelle, she went back to England with Ma. By now she's probably going to balls an' such, living the life of a real lady."
"I would like to meet her. I wish--"
"What?"
"I would like to see how it is over there. I would like to see the clothes your women wear."
"Most of them are kind of silly. Seems so to me, anyhow. Hair all done up an' powdered, fancy silk skirts. Pa said they could look mighty fetching, though."
"Could I wear those clothes?"
Well, I looked at her again. She could wear anything. With that figure and the way she walked--she was more like a queen than any queen I'd heard of.
"You could," I admitted, "and you'd be beautiful in them. You would turn every head in the place."
She was pleased, so I went on and told her more about the balls and such. Ma had told us about them, told Noelle most of all, but we had listened. She told about dancing and about clothes and the ballrooms, so I repeated it to Itchakomi. "There would be nobody as beautiful as you," I finished, realizing what I said was true.
It was easier talking about such things than about my plans. Whenever she got on that tack it set me to fidgeting because I hadn't really thought it out. I'd never thought that far ahead. I'd settle down somewhere, I supposed. Maybe with some Indians, as there was not much chance of a man getting by alone.
Or I'd go back.
But I wouldn't. I had known that from the beginning. My destiny was here, where the west was. Like I'd told her, I'd find a meadow somewhere with a stream flowing through it and I'd build a log house. Maybe more than a cabin. Might be things would get better with the Spanish and I could get some books from them. I would like to be reading again. There was so much I did not know.
The sun was warming things up and I looked toward the opening of the valley. I should be over there, waiting. Those Indians would come.
Yet I lingered. A man living off the country and in a land where there's risk at every hand does not get much time to contemplate himself. He has no time to speculate on the ifs and the buts of his life, nor to ask questions of himself and his motives. Each day is a day to live and in which to keep from dying, and a man's energies are directed out from himself and his thoughts as well. Contemplation is a leisure indulgence. It is for a man in an armchair or beside a fire in his own house. It isn't for a man whose every sense is attuned to sounds outside himself.
Itchakomi had asked me questions I'd never asked myself, and I suspected she had a lot more lying in wait for their proper moments. She was a disturbing woman, in more ways than one.
Pa, being the man he was, had laid a duty on me to sort of play godfather to the Indians. They were good people, with wise men among them, and customs suited to the country, but sometimes they needed an outside opinion or in my case somebody to act for an old gentleman not up to the trip we'd made.
More than that, I liked the Ni'kwana. There was something between us, and we had sensed it when we had come together. We could have sat down and talked from the first moment like old friends.
All right, so here I was. I'd found Itchakomi and delivered his message. Why was I hanging around? Because of the cold and the snow. Would I be around if it wasn't for that? I shied from the question like a bird from a sudden move.
"There's a wind blowing in this country now," I said, "that's going to blow a lot of change. The Indian way of life will be the first to go, I think, because the white man is part of that change, and most of them can't see any way but their own.
"Pa, he was different. First off, he was raised in the fens and the life was different there, more independent and freer, and then he set up for himself and came over here.
"He didn't ask anybody for permission to come. He got no grant from any king or great lord, he just came of himself and found land where he wanted to be.
"There weren't many like him, but there were some, and the sons and daughters of those first ones were just as independent and free. The second generation moved out and set up for themselves away from the regular settlements. Their sons and daughters will be even more eager to strike out on their own. The king is just a name to them, and they will never have lived on any great lord's estate.
"Some of them will cater to Indian ways, some will resist that. They will find land they want and set up for themselves and fight off anybody who tries to take it from them, be he Indian or white.
"Pa was one of the first of a new kind of man. Maybe not a new kind, because he was probably a lot like those who crossed the Channel with William of Normandy. Most of them had nothing, so they crossed over with William and took what they wanted from the folks already in England.
"The trouble is, they'll do the same here. It's the way of the world, just like the Conejeros came in here and killed off Indians who were living here and will try to kill us.
"If we wish to live we've got to try to kill them or enough of them so they will leave us alone. I don't want it to become like it was with Pa.
"The Senecas fought him because he was a friend of their enemies, the Catawba. He whipped them so many times it became a matter of honor for every young warrior to have a try at us. I heard it was said in some villages that a warrior couldn't call himself such unless he'd had at least one go at us at Shooting Creek. They'd come down the Warrior's Path a-purpose.
"I don't want to fight all my life. I am a man of peace, and when I've come back from wandering I want that log house in the meadow somewhere. I--"
"Alone?"
Damnit! There she was again! A man couldn't--"That will be a cabin I've built myself," I said, "mighty small, as it's for one man."
"Smaller than this cave?"
"Well--not exactly. I haven't rightly figured the size of the place. It's just an idea, anyway."
"It should be larger," Itchakomi said. "You might have a visit from a friend. Or even two."
"Well ... when it comes to that--"
My eye caught a movement from over where we had come into the valley. Keokotah was there, and he was waving something to
attract my attention.
The only reason he would signal me was that the Conejeros were coming, or somebody.
"Keokotah is calling me. I'd better go."
I wasted no time. Keokotah would not call for help unless he believed it was needed, and if he needed help, more than a few were coming our way.
I started running like a coward, happy to get into a fight I thought I could win.
Chapter Twenty-five.
Keokotah was in the rocks and brush, where he had a good view of the trail into our valley. Much of the snow had melted, and the earth was muddy. Here and there were pools of water and patches of snow on the north slopes of hills. We could see the Conejeros coming and counted twelve.
We did not talk. Each knew what must be done and knew it would not be easy. Glancing back I could see some of the Natchee moving down to the brush along the creek, our second line of defense.
"I will take the last man," I suggested.
Keokotah made no reply. He would fight his own battle, as I would. Each of us had his own skills and his own ideas on how to expend them.
They were a hundred yards off, the last man some fifty yards further, when I selected an arrow and bent my bow, waiting just a little longer. They came on. Keokotah slipped down to a better position. The last man had to round a boulder and to do so must almost face me. He was at least fifteen feet behind the next man when I let fly.
The years of training with the bow now paid their way, for my arrow took him in the chest and he fell back, his hands grasping the arrow, struggling to withdraw it. Keokotah's arrow went into his man's throat, and the man fell. The others vanished like a puff of smoke. An instant, and they were there--another, and they were gone.
One man I saw drop among some rocks, but knew he would not rise from the spot where he had disappeared, so I plotted in my mind his probable movements. They were trying to get into the valley, and he would use as much shelter as could be found. As I had come through that entrance myself I knew how the land lay. About thirty yards farther along from where he had dropped from sight was a gap in the cover. I knew he would make a step, perhaps two, before I could get on target, so I chose a place close to the edge of his next cover and waited.
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